The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut will once again offer fall community puppet-building workshops with acclaimed Boston puppeteer Sara Peattie, to design and build over-life-size puppets of army ants and their associated species (“guests”) for the Celebrate Mansfield Parade and a special Ant Migration Pageant with the Hartford Hot Several Brass Band in Storrs, Connecticut. These free workshops will take place Saturday and Sunday, September 9 and 10 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Ballard Institute, located at 1 Royce Circle in Storrs Center. Workshop participants will be invited to parade with the Army Ant puppets as part of the Celebrate Mansfield Parade on Sunday, September 17 at noon (line-up begins at 10:30 a.m. at Farrell Field near the Post Office), and then perform in the Ant Migration Pageant, an open-air community spectacle directed by Sara Peattie incorporating the giant puppets and music by the Hartford Hot Several to tell the exciting story of army ants and their "guests.” These events are all part of the 14th Annual Celebrate Mansfield Festival.
This year’s workshop theme is part of AntU, an endeavor at UConn designed to involve a variety of academic disciplines to engage a broad audience in the wonders of the complex biological systems of army ants and their hundreds of associated species (“guests"). It is an idea borne out of an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Collections in Support of Biological Research program to UConn's Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB), in partnership with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History (CSMNH), to preserve and curate the Carl W. and Marian E. Rettenmeyer Army Ant Guest Collection. This world-class collection of over two million army ants and their guests is the result of 50 years of careful, detailed fieldwork in Central and South America by the Rettenmeyers. To learn more about AntU, visit web.uconn.edu/mnh/antu.
No experience is necessary to participate in these free community puppet-building workshops with Sara Peattie. Participants can come for one or both days and are not required to stay for the entire time. Minors must be accompanied by an adult. To register for the workshop, contact the Ballard Institute at bimp@uconn.edu or 860-486-8580.
For more information, contact: Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at 860-486-8580 or bimp@uconn.edu